The central object in the kitchen was, of course, the fireplace, which was sometimes very large. At Stratford it was “twelve feet wide, six high, and five deep, evidently capable of roasting a fair-sized ox.”[208] In the days when pains were taken not to spoil good meat with bad cooking, your haunch of venison, saddle of mutton, or stuffed turkey was not baked to insipidity in an oven meant for better uses, but was carefully turned about on an iron spit, catching rich aroma from the caressing flame, while the basting was judiciously poured from ladles, and dripping-pans caught the savoury juices. Then there was the great copper boiler imbedded in brick and heated from underneath; there were the kettles and sauce-pans, the swinging iron pot, the gridirons and frying-pans, and the wooden trays for carrying the cooked dishes to the dining-hall.
Abundance of food.
The settlers in the strange wilderness of the Powhatans had once had their Starving Time, but it would be hard to point to any part of the earth more bountifully supplied with wholesome and delicious food than civilized Old Virginia. Venison, beef, and dairy products were excellent and cheap. Mutton was less common, and was highly prized. The pork in its various forms was pronounced equal to that of Yorkshire or Westphalia. Succulent vegetables and toothsome fruits were grown in bewildering variety. Good Henry of Navarre’s peasant, had he lived in this favoured country, might have had every day a fowl in his pot; while, as for game and fish, the fame of Chesapeake Bay is world-wide for its canvas-backs, mallards, and red-heads, its terrapin, its soles, bass, and shad, and, last not least, its oysters. The various cakes which the cooks of the Old Dominion could make from their maize and other grains have also won celebrity.
Beverages, native and imported.
To wash down these native viands the Virginian had divers drinks, whereof all the best were imported. Englishmen could not in a moment leave off beer-drinking, but the generous, full-bodied and delicate-flavoured ale of the mother country has never been successfully imitated on this side of the Atlantic, and indeed seems hardly adapted to our sweltering summers. Concerning the beer brewed in Old Virginia opinions varied; but since barley soon ceased to be cultivated, and attempts were made to supply its place with maize or pumpkins or persimmons, we need not greatly regret that we were not there to be regaled with it. Cider, with its kindred beverages, was abundant,[209] and doubtless of much better quality. Apple-jack and peach brandy were distilled. Other beverages were imported, most commonly sack, of which Falstaff was so fond; the name was applied to such dry (Spanish seco) and strong wines as sherry and madeira. In the cellars of wealthy planters were often found choice brands of red wine from Bordeaux and white wine from the Rhineland. Cognacs were also imported, and of rum we have already spoken. Evidently our friends, the planters, had sturdy tipplers among them.[210] Fortunately for them, the manufacture of coarse whiskey from maize and rye had not yet come into vogue, while of the less harmful peaty “mountain dew” from Ireland or Scotland we hear nothing.
Smyth’s picture of a planter.
Of the daily life of a rich planter we have a graphic account from John Ferdinand Smyth, a British soldier who travelled through Virginia and other colonies, and sojourned for some years in Maryland, about the middle of the eighteenth century. I cite the description, because so much has been made of it: “The gentleman of fortune rises about nine o’clock; he may perhaps make an excursion to walk as far as his stable to see his horses, which is seldom more than fifty yards from his house; he returns to breakfast between nine and ten, which is generally tea or coffee, bread-and-butter, and very thin slices of venison, ham, or hung beef. He then lies down on a pallet on the floor, in the coolest room in the house, in his shirt and trousers only, with a negro at his head and another at his feet, to fan him and keep off the flies; between twelve and one he takes a draught of bombo, or toddy, a liquor composed of water, sugar, rum, and nutmeg, which is made weak and kept cool; he dines between two and three, and at every table, whatever else there may be, a ham and greens, or cabbage, is always a standing dish. At dinner he drinks cider, toddy, punch, port, claret, and madeira, which is generally excellent here; having drank [sic] some few glasses of wine after dinner, he returns to his pallet, with his two blacks to fan him, and continues to drink toddy, or sangaree, all the afternoon; he does not always drink tea. Between nine and ten in the evening he eats a light supper of milk and fruit, or wine, sugar, and fruit, etc., and almost immediately retires to bed for the night. This is his general way of living in his family, when he has no company. No doubt many differ from it, some in one respect, some in another; but more follow it than do not.”[211]
This extract seems to show that Rev. Samuel Peters was not the only writer who liked to entertain his trustful British friends with queer tales about their American cousins.[212] No doubt Mr. Smyth wrote it with his tongue in his cheek; but if he meant what he said, we must remember that the besetting sin of travellers is hasty generalization. We will take Mr. Smyth’s word for it that one or more gentlemen were in the habit of passing their days in the way he describes, and we may freely admit that a good many gentlemen might thus make shift to keep alive through some furious attack of the weather fiend in August; but his concluding statement, that this way of living was customary, is not to be taken seriously. An extract from the manuscript recollections of General John Mason, son of the illustrious George Mason, gives a different picture:—
The mode of life at Gunston.
“It was very much the practice with gentlemen of landed and slave estates ... so to organize them as to have considerable resources within themselves; to employ and pay but few tradesmen, and to buy little or none of the coarse stuffs and materials used by them.... Thus my father had among his slaves carpenters, coopers, sawyers, blacksmiths, tanners, curriers, shoemakers, spinners, weavers, and knitters, and even a distiller. His woods furnished timber and plank for the carpenters and coopers, and charcoal for the blacksmith; his cattle killed for his own consumption and for sale supplied skins for the tanners, curriers, and shoemakers; and his sheep gave wool and his fields produced cotton and flax for the weavers and spinners, and his orchards fruit for the distiller. His carpenters and sawyers built and kept in repair all the dwelling-houses, barns, stables, ploughs, harrows, gates, etc., on the plantations, and the outhouses at the house. His coopers made the hogsheads the tobacco was prized in, and the tight casks to hold the cider and other liquors. The tanners and curriers, with the proper vats, etc., tanned and dressed the skins as well for upper as for lower leather to the full amount of the consumption of the estate, and the shoemakers made them into shoes for the negroes. A professed shoemaker was hired for three or four months in the year to come and make up the shoes for the white part of the family. The blacksmiths did all the ironwork required by the establishment, as making and repairing ploughs, harrows, teeth, chains, bolts, etc. The spinners, weavers, and knitters made all the coarse cloths and stockings used by the negroes, and some of finer texture worn by the white family, nearly all worn by the children of it. The distiller made every fall a good deal of apple, peach, and persimmon brandy. The art of distilling from grain was not then among us, and but few public distilleries. All these operations were carried on at the home house, and their results distributed as occasion required to the different plantations. Moreover, all the beeves and hogs for consumption or sale were driven up and slaughtered there at the proper seasons, and whatever was to be preserved was salted and packed away for after distribution.